


A Piece of the Puzzle

by KokoScripsit



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Fan Rewrite of Someone Else's Work, Fluff and Angst, Happy Beginning, Logan is the narrator by the way, M/M, Mpreg, angsty middle, he's technically the villain of the piece but he never actually makes an appearance, mentions of Deceit Sanders - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 00:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 9,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18083576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KokoScripsit/pseuds/KokoScripsit
Summary: Logan's spent his whole life collecting information about reality, and about the strange quasi-fictional reality he lives in as a Side of Thomas Sanders' personality. He knows, in theory, that there exists a phenomenon that can allow certain Sides to procreate under the right circumstances.He just wasn't expecting that to become part of his practical experiences, and certainly not this soon.Very closely based on the early chapters of "Our Missing Piece" by Hopelessoul.





	1. Just a Little Unwell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hopelessoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopelessoul/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Our Missing Piece](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15431523) by [Hopelessoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopelessoul/pseuds/Hopelessoul). 



> Hey, Koko here. I want to extend my gratitude once again to the clever Hopelessoul for coming up with such an incredible concept that I wanted to explore it for myself, and for giving me permission to go ahead and do this. If you've read the original fic (which I do recommend, particularly as it's still ongoing and a great ride throughout), you'll probably notice as the fic goes on that there are some minor changes that I made for my version, mostly because I'm twenty-five and there are some things that, speaking as an adult, I just don't feel comfortable writing.
> 
> I'll try to update this once a week or so, unlike my other ongoing fic where my schedule is "whenever I manage to squeeze another chapter's worth of words out of the muses." I hope that this pleases.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Unwell" by Matchbox 20. Literally nothing about the song other than that one line has anything to do with anything that happens in this chapter, but it's a good song anyway.

It was normal for things to be loud in the Mindscape, considering exactly _with whom_ I lived. I habitually tuned out all the noise while trying to work or read, so it took me several moments to piece together what exactly had distracted me from my book.

It couldn't be the sound of Roman's singing; I had long since made peace with the fact that I was cohabiting with the adolescent incarnation of Radio Disney. Indeed, his soulful rendition of “Reflection” was really quite unobjectionable, even pleasing, as far as background music went. So that couldn't be the problem.

But Roman, of course, was not my only fellow Side. My boyfriend Patton was typically every bit as loud, so perhaps he was the one responsible for whatever had disturbed me. Listen though I might for Patton, though, I detected no sound that might have issued from him. After a bit of thinking about it, I realized that that was exactly the problem: there was _no sound_ from Patton, or at least none that I could identify from my location in the living room, and I was so accustomed to hearing his voice and movements that this registered as something amiss.

Obviously, prudence demanded that I investigate the matter, if only to ascertain the cause of this uncharacteristic silence.

Upon approaching Patton's room, I heard the muffled but unmistakable sound of violent retching. This, I decided, was an adequate reason to dispense with the usual pleasantries; rather than knocking, I pushed the door open immediately and followed the sound to the en suite bathroom at an accelerated pace.

As I had already guessed I would, I found Patton crouching on the tile floor and vomiting into the toilet. He was clearly in a great deal of distress; I approached quickly and attempted to brush his hair out of his face. Unfortunately, he had apparently not noticed my arrival, and flinched away.

“It's only me, Patton,” I assured him, but opted not to try to touch him again until he was able to look at me and see as much for himself.

After what felt like far too long, his stomach ceased to empty itself and he turned his head to look at me. “Logan,” he murmured. His voice sounded raw, doubtless from all the acid that had just passed through his throat. “I don't feel so good.”

“I can see that,” I observed as blandly as I could. No matter how troubling I found the fact that my beloved was evidently in distress, I had to keep my composure. The faster I could get to the practicalities, the faster I could do something about it. “Do you know the cause of your gastrointestinal upset?”

He looked thoughtful for a few seconds before replying, “Gosh, all I can think of is what it _can't_ be. I know it's not a virus because Thomas would be having some kind of trouble if it was, and he's fine. And I know it's not food poisoning, because I haven't had anything that you and Roman haven't been eating too, and _you're_ fine. And it's been starting too early and too often to be just eating too much too fast. But I just don't know what else it could be.”

I frowned at that. He had ruled out the main possibilities fairly conclusively, then, but what was left? “Have you noticed any other symptoms, anything else out of the ordinary?” I asked.

“Well... my pants are too small all of a sudden, even though I've puked every day for a week,” he admitted. “And I know feelings are part of my job, but I feel like they're getting... stronger, or closer to the surface, like it takes less before I start laughing or crying...”

That definitely matched a pattern I'd heard of. It seemed so improbable, but when I had embarked on some research about the nature of our existence as Sides, one of the things I discovered was that there was a minority among us who, despite the fact that we were all male on account of being aspects of a male's personality, would be capable of gestating offspring. The term that I had found for that phenomenon sounded odd to my ears, but seeing as the purpose of language is communication...

“Patton, have you ever heard of _the complex_?”

Patton nodded enthusiastically, smiling at the memory. “Yes, I remember you told me about it. I thought it was so cool, that there are Sides who can have ba—” He clearly did not intend to cut himself off there, but his stomach's rebellion intervened.

I waited until he was done vomiting before I explained further. Better to ensure that he heard what I was saying. “Based on what you have described, I suspect that _you_ might have the complex.”

“You mean...?”

“Yes. My hypothesis is that you are pregnant.”

It took several seconds for my statement to sink in; I could see as it did because first hope and then elation slowly spread across his face, at the end of which he flung his arms around me with a squeal of delight. Despite his obviously weakened state, he clearly welcomed the prospect.

I allowed him to cling to me for a long moment, then eased him away. “We ought to get you to a doctor as quickly as possible in any event,” I reminded him. “They will be able to test whether my hypothesis is correct.”


	2. All We Have to Give

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the rather obscure and probably pretty terrible song "I Have Been There" by Mark Schultz; in the exact opposite case from last chapter, I picked this line mostly for its context (because the first verse is about a young couple with a new baby, and how they're scared because "all we have to give is love").

As odd as it might seem from the outside, we did in fact have a hospital, complete with doctors, in the Mindscape. The most frequent patient was Roman, who often required that degree of assistance upon his return from particularly dangerous quests, but we had all made use of it at one time or another. I had long suspected that it resembled real-life human hospitals and medical care only insofar as Thomas understood these things, but the doctors knew plenty about how we functioned and what optimal health looked like for us as Sides, and that was what mattered.

Patton was so weak in the aftermath of his vomiting fit that I was practically carrying him by the time we entered the hospital. We made our presence and purpose known to the staff and then sat down to wait. After half an hour—which seemed unreasonably long to me, considering that the hospital had no other purpose than to ensure the well-being of Thomas' Sides, and there were only a handful of us—a doctor came to greet us.

“Logic, Morality, what brings you here today?”

I indicated Patton. “He has been feeling unwell, and—”

Patton himself cut me off, whispering excitedly, “He thinks I might have _the complex,_ so I need a pregnancy test to make sure!”

The doctor looked at me for confirmation, so I nodded. “His symptoms thus far are consistent with pregnancy. As we are... a couple, with all that implies, and I have yet to see any evidence against the theory...”

With a nod, the doctor went into another room and reappeared shortly after carrying a small box, which he handed to Patton. As my boyfriend disappeared into the bathroom, I thought for sure I heard him murmur to himself, “So this is where babies come from,” but I convinced myself that I must have been imagining it.

It wasn't long after that that he returned and the doctor informed us, “Congratulations, you are expecting a baby.”

I wrapped my arms around Patton's waist and shoulders, as he turned to me, smiling but with tears in his eyes.

“Are you all right?” I asked, unsure what to make of the mixed signals, but he just laughed.

“Silly L, I'm better than all right. I'm so _happy,_ we're having a _baby_ —”

He had to stop there, grabbing a nearby trash can to throw up into it again, but that didn't even seem to bring him down from his high, as when he resurfaced he was grinning just as brightly. I couldn't help smiling with him.

I was never sure what he saw in my face that made him look concerned when he met my eyes again, but he asked me, “Are you all right?”

“I am perfectly well,” I told him, but he just stared at me with an odd look in his eyes until I pulled him close and admitted, much more quietly, “I'm... concerned that I may not be prepared for this.” I had been aware that the complex existed, of course, but I had always thought about it so abstractly—never as something that could affect my life so directly. I had never considered that that meant that I could become a _father_ before. It seemed like it would come so easily and naturally to Patton, but I had so little idea of what my part would consist of.

“You don't have to be ready yet,” Patton reminded me. “We only just found out, so I can't be that far along. There's still months and _months_ left to figure out what it's going to take for us to take care of a baby. And you've got a good starting point, don't you see?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He pulled my hand to his stomach and held it there. “You want our baby to be happy and healthy, don't you? That's where all good dads start. And I'm not going anywhere, so we're gonna do this together!”

I considered that. He had made several good points. I would have plenty of time to research the practical aspects of caring for a baby. I did not have to do everything, because he would be here with me as well. And I wanted to ensure a good outcome for our child because... so help me, I loved it already.

“You are correct, Patton,” I said, and held him close. The gesture made me feel warm, both from his body heat and my own happiness. We had just received good news, surprising as it was, and whatever challenges came of it, we would face together.


	3. Give All My Secrets Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Secrets" by OneRepublic.

We agreed to tell Thomas and Roman at the same time, to obviate the need to decide whom to tell first. Patton went first, to speak with our host alone, but it was only a matter of moments before Roman and I were summoned to join them. Regarding the scene before me, I thought that we made a slightly odd picture, all together... almost like a family...

In our childhood, we had all appeared very much alike, despite minor variations in our appearance which made it possible to distinguish each of us from the others. I had assumed for many years that we would always appear to be the same age as Thomas did, that we would continue to age in synchronization with him. To my surprise, it was not so: when Thomas was ten years old, Patton and I experienced a bout of extremely accelerated maturation, both physically and mentally, which resulted in our manifesting the capabilities of approximately eighteen-year-old humans. I hypothesized that this unexpected event represented his brain developing a greatly improved capacity for logical and moral reasoning, while Patton suggested that it might be a blessing from some benevolent entity meant to equip us to serve more effectively as advisors to him during the difficult years that were to come. To his unconcealed distaste, Roman remained approximately the same age as Thomas, making him the youngest of us.

So far, we had yet to find out any evidence regarding the reasons for our rapid aging, but about a year and a half had passed and nothing had complicated our age situation any further: Patton and I were still young adults, while Thomas and Roman were approaching twelve years old.

“For what reason do you call upon us, Thomas?” Roman inquired theatrically, bringing my attention back to the present situation.

“Morality said he had something important to tell us all,” Thomas said, his gaze turning to Patton with a questioning look. To Thomas' and Roman's evident befuddlement, however, Patton in turn looked over to me, and I nodded.

“Logic, would you mind, _baby_?” my exasperating boyfriend asked, loading the last word down with meaning. I couldn't help a quiet groan in response to the implied pun, provoking wide-eyed stares in my direction from Thomas and Roman, but nodded.

“All right, it appears that I will be explaining,” I began. “As you are doubtless aware by now, the semi-fictional nature of our existence allows us to experience situations that would be extremely improbable, if not outright impossible in cases such as the rapid aging that Morality and I have undergone, for ordinary humans.” I glanced at Thomas to make sure that he was following the thread of my point this far. All signs indicated comprehension, so I continued.

“One such phenomenon is something that, for reasons I have yet to determine, is known as _the complex._ It is believed to be rare, for whatever that means among us, and it causes a Side to be capable of bearing children despite being otherwise indistinguishable from other males.” I took a deep breath. This was it: the moment of truth.

“We have just discovered that Morality has this complex, and he is pregnant with my child.”

For a long moment, nobody spoke. I looked around at the faces, focusing most on Thomas and Roman's younger ones, but I could not interpret their expressions. Were they confused? Worse, disgusted?

And then they broke out in smiles, mirroring the look on Patton's face, and questions began to erupt forth.

“How long have you known?”

“That Morality is pregnant?” I asked, more or less rhetorically. “About two hours. That he has the complex? About... two hours.”

“D'you know what gender the baby's going to be?”

“We only just found out that I'm pregnant,” Patton pointed out. “We don't even know if I'm far enough along to tell.”

“Though,” I put in, “since we are all aspects of a single individual of the male gender, I suspect that the baby will also be a Side of Thomas, and therefore will most likely be male as well.”

“Are you excited?”

I left that one for Patton to answer by himself, since he was bouncing up and down with excitement, though I could not entirely suppress a smile as he answered, “Of course! It's gonna be a big job, being dads, but we get to have our very own baby!”

“May we play with the baby once it has been born?” Roman asked, for of course it would be Roman.

“Naturally,” I began, and Patton backed me up with a great deal more enthusiasm.

“That would be _so cute!_ I would _love_ it if you did, and I'm sure the kiddo will love having friends to play with!”

It was incredible, I mused. I had been concerned that Thomas and Roman might react negatively to our strange situation, but it was not so. They were all so _excited_ that we were going to have a baby...

And the more I thought about it, the more it sunk in... so was I.


	4. With the Sweetest of Devotion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is all made up of things that didn't appear in the original fic I'm basing this off of. Why? Because I am secretly Logan: I think that researching the science of pregnancy and fetal development is fun! And, thinking that he surely would enjoy it as well, I decided to show him researching and sharing his results with Patton! Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, I just read about medicine for fun.  
> Chapter title is from "Baby Baby" by Amy Grant. Fun trivia fact about the song: despite what the music video would have you think, she actually wrote it right after giving birth to her first child, about how much she loved her new baby daughter.

I never did figure out which was more astonishing to me: how many baby-related puns Patton managed to make during his pregnancy, or how fond I became of them by the end. Of course, I would never want him to be any other way, not even when his sense of humor pains me. He would not be the man I fell in love with without it.

And what an amazing man he was, I thought often. Somehow he took the uncomfortable parts of pregnancy in stride, with a smile that never failed. It didn't slow his mind down any, and it might not have slowed him down physically either if I hadn't pointed out that he should probably be a little more careful.

As we had both guessed, the discovery of the pregnancy had come very early; although it was initially rather difficult to work out exactly how far along he was on account of lacking the signs that were usually used to determine such things, we did eventually work out that he had been in approximately the sixth week of pregnancy.

Meanwhile, I threw myself into learning everything I could about what he was going through, what I could do to help him, and what we would need to know once the baby arrived. On one particular morning, Patton was curled up on the sofa, his head resting on my leg, while I read one of the many books I had procured for that purpose.

I must have said something aloud, or at least made some kind of noise, because Patton murmured, “What's that?” just loud enough to catch my attention.

“Oh, I didn't mean to disturb you,” I replied at a similar volume. “I was merely reading this intriguing chapter...”

“Well, what does it say?”

I glanced back at the page. “This section is discussing sex dimorphism in terms of pregnancy—specifically, the adaptations that female humans typically have to make pregnancy safer and less difficult. We know that you do not seem any different from the rest of us on the outside, but I am now curious if you have any of the differences that are not obvious to the naked eye...”

Patton hummed thoughtfully. “Like what?”

It was around that point that I noticed my free hand running up and down his back. “Like a reinforced spinal column, to withstand the posture changes required as the fetus becomes larger and your center of gravity moves forward.” I stopped my hand on his lower back and rubbed thoughtfully at the bony projections of his spine. “If not, you will need to be extra careful with standing and walking as the pregnancy progresses. It would not help anything if you damaged your back.”

“Why _would_ I have that?” Patton wondered.

I shrugged. “We have very little evidence to suggest one way or the other. But you do have morning sickness, so...”

He made a noise suggesting even greater puzzlement at that. “I thought that was a bad reaction to the pregnancy hormones.”

“It could be,” I agreed. “But that is only one theory. According to this, there is also a competing theory holding that morning sickness is in fact an adaptation which reduces the risk of miscarriage by causing an aversion to substances which might injure the baby.”

The wide-eyed look on Patton's face suggested that that had certainly _surprised_ him, though I was unable to ascertain, at that moment, whether he considered it to be a “good” surprise or a “bad” one.

“So maybe I'm feeling bad just because it's really important to keep the baby safe?” he checked.

“Precisely,” I confirmed. “Possibly also to protect yourself, as it is very common for the immune system to be weakened during pregnancy—again, as an adaptation; to put it simply, your immune system normally protects you from anything that is _not you,_ but according to the definitions it normally uses, the _baby_ is not you. Therefore, your immune function is partially suppressed to avoid harming the baby, with the unfortunate consequence that you yourself require extra protection from potential outside dangers.”

Patton looked down at his stomach, rubbing it very gently with his fingertips. “I think that's a good reason to deal with this,” he said, so quietly that I thought perhaps he was speaking to the baby more than to me.

If that were so, I was unsure if he would want my input on the subject, but after a moment's thought I adjusted my position to wrap more of myself around him. “I will do what I can to protect you, as well,” I promised.

He smiled up at me, and the room felt warmer, while at the same time the notion struck me that I should attempt to arrange more opportunities for him to smile with that genuine happiness. “I love you, Lo,” he sighed.

I indulged the further notion that I should rub my nose in his hair for a moment, before drawing back as I remembered a very concrete and hopefully actionable method to make him even happier. “I may be able to determine a diet which is both adequately nutritious and mild enough that it may alleviate, or at any rate ameliorate, your nausea. Would you like that?”

Patton laughed, though I was not quite sure why. “Yes, you sweet dork, but you don't have to do it _now._ There's still a couple _hours_ left before lunch. Stay here and cuddle me a little longer!”

So I did.


	5. The Places You Will Be From

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Closing Time" by Semisonic, which is a song that is simultaneously about literal closing time at a literal bar, and about having a baby with "closing time" being a metaphor for birth.

My efforts to help Patton with his sickness were partially successful. The nausea never quite let up entirely, but he experienced less of it after I attempted to reduce his exposure to items likely to trigger it. Time also helped, as my research had suggested it would: morning sickness is, after all, associated particularly with the earlier stages of pregnancy.

At the next visit to the doctor, we got to see an image of our baby. When the technician first pressed the ultrasound transducer to Patton's belly, the image that appeared looked to me like nothing so much as a black-and-white digital rendition of a snowstorm, but when the doctor explained what we were looking at, I could see it.

“That's definitely a twenty-week fetus,” he assured us. “Here's the head, and here are the feet, and... oh, it looks like you're having a boy!”

A boy. I'd guessed right, then.

“Hello, baby boy,” Patton cooed adoringly. “I can't wait to get to know you!” On the screen, the fuzzy shape of the baby moved.

Our baby was declared to be showing every sign of normal and healthy development, which was exactly what I wanted to hear. On the way home, we walked hand in hand, discussing names.

We had already talked some about names. For one thing, Patton wanted to have a name ready for either a boy or a girl, just in case we were caught by surprise; however unlikely it was that both my theory and the doctor's observations should mislead us, I could not, and did not want to, argue with his desire to ensure that we were adequately prepared to love and accept whatever child we happened to have. Beyond that, we agreed completely on what we wanted in a name for our baby: it should be pleasant-sounding and ideally with a pleasant meaning as well, distinctive enough that the child would not risk being mixed up with anyone we were close to but not so far out of the ordinary that it would be difficult to spell or pronounce, and nothing that would become unfortunate when combined with the last name “Sanders.”

“How about 'Angel'?” Patton suggested. 

“For a girl, that or similar would be excellent,” I said, “but I'm less certain how I feel about it for a boy.” I ran through the mental list of potential names I had been collecting. “Maybe... Immanuel? It means 'God with us,' and it was also the given name of Immanuel Kant, the famous philosopher.”

Patton appeared to be chewing over the thought for some moments, before deciding, “Oh, Logan, I _Kant_ believe you'd do that to a little baby. It just seems like an awful lot of name to lay on the poor kiddo.” He flashed me a bright grin, though. “I'm sure we'll find one that both of us are a-name-able to sooner or later... how about Ethan? It fits in well with the names the rest of us have...”

We ran through a number of options, discarding some and noting others down to revisit later, but it was one of the ideas I had nearly chosen not to proffer that turned out to be the best of all. It was another one that was a bit further out of the ordinary, and I worried that Patton wouldn't like it.

“Perhaps... Virgil? It's—”

Patton looked startled, and his free hand flew to his belly. “Oh! I think I felt the baby kick just now!”

I squeezed his hand, excited. We were nearly home, and I wanted to see if I could feel it myself. “According to my reading, this is the point in pregnancy where it is normal to begin feeling such things,” I mused.

Patton nodded. “This might be it, then. What were you saying?”

I opened the door for him, knowing that it was a bit excessive but concerned for his safety nonetheless. “I suggested an ancient Roman name, associated particularly with a certain great poet. In English, the version of that name we use is _Virgil_.”

“ _Oh!_ ” Patton reiterated. “He just kicked again! I think he likes it!”

I laughed and sat down with him on the living room sofa, laying my hand on his belly. “Perhaps he does. It's a good name. Though we cannot trace the exact etymology, it's believed to share a root with _vigilance,_ with possible influence in the medieval era from a word connected to the concept of healing, and the poet Virgil—” I may have imagined it, but I thought that this time, with my hand resting on Patton's stomach, I could feel the little baby kick through his warm skin “—was known to be remarkable in his own lifetime, and his renown persisted for centuries, even millennia, afterwards.”

“I like it,” Patton agreed. “I think that might be the perfect name we've been looking for.”

It was around that time that Roman entered the room. “You're back!” he greeted us. “How did the ultrasound go?”

“It was a re- _sound_ -ing success!” Patton informed him cheerfully, while I stifled a groan out of habit. “The baby's healthy, and the doctor says it's a boy, and I felt him kicking, and we're thinking we'll call him Virgil!”

“ _Virgil!_ ” Roman repeated, having apparently followed Patton's train of thought with no difficulty. “What an excellent name!” Addressing the slight swell of Patton's stomach directly, he added, “What do you think, young Virgil? Will you be coming out to introduce yourself by that name?”

Patton laughed, touching his faintly vibrating belly. “I think he's very excited about that!”


	6. Now and Forevermore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "You'll Be In My Heart" by Phil Collins. It's time to meet the baby.

As the months passed, Patton's little “baby bump” grew to be so huge that he looked as if he had swallowed a whole watermelon, and he proved correct the advice he had given me to begin with: that we would have plenty of time to prepare to welcome the baby into our lives. I had previously known altogether too little about childrearing and the needs of infants, so I threw my efforts into rectifying that oversight. By my calculations, we should have everything ready at least two months before the due date, in case something happened and the baby came early. 

So we did. Everyone was surprised that I advocated for the nursery to be decorated in bright colors with lots of contrast—at least, until I explained that, while the eye is fully developed at birth, it takes some time for the brain to learn to process the information it receives from the eye, and the best way to promote that learning is to offer high-contrast environments that the infant's brain can process. Subtlety comes later.

In addition to a nursery, we needed a layette—what Patton defined at one point, and not incorrectly, as a “baby starter kit.” I found a checklist of what a good layette should consist of, and ensured that we had all the necessary items ready in adequate quantities. Warm clothes, receiving blankets, diapers...

And then, once everything was ready, all that remained was to wait. Well, that and make sure that Patton didn't injure himself along the way.

As the due date approached, Patton began to mention feeling a variety of aches, their probable causes ranging in nature from muscle tiredness to something known as _Braxton-Hicks contractions_ or, in more colloquial terms, _false labor_. I read up on the signs that distinguished false labor from the real thing and carefully quizzed Patton every time he complained of pain that might be one or the other. Better not to confuse the two.

Eventually, the day came. We were curled up together on the living room sofa, when Patton huffed quietly and said, “Oof, this hurts _different_.”

I frowned, looking into his face curiously. “When you say, 'different,' what do you mean?”

“My _back_ —it keeps feeling like I've got this _knot_ in it that's tied around my middle. It's been happening on and off all day but it's getting _worse_.”

I smiled down at him, tentatively excited. “Patton, love, they say that's something true labor pains can feel like.”

The same hopeful awe I felt was reflected back at me from his face. “You mean the baby's coming?”

“It could be,” I replied, looking at my wristwatch. “If we can measure regular intervals between the onset of one and the next, then that would confirm it.”

It was about then that I felt something oddly wet on the sofa.

“Patton, did you just feel something?”

He swallowed, bright-eyed. “Yes.”

I tried not to let my emotions cloud my judgment, but it was difficult even for me. After all this time, the wait was very nearly over.

Labor takes a long time, and they say that it's at its worst the first time. Within an hour, the contractions were coming regularly and so strong that Patton could not speak, but it went on all night and into the next day. By the end of it, I found myself standing in a hospital room, Patton's hand gripping mine so hard that I was genuinely surprised that he hadn't actually broken me. I wondered how it could be so difficult, how he could want this so badly.

And then it was over, my hand ached vaguely and I could have sworn it was bruised, but the doctor was handing the baby to me.

Me?

Why did _I_ get passed the baby? Patton was the one who had done all the work.

I looked down, slightly bewildered, into the even more bewildered baby-blue eyes of the tiny, smushed-looking newborn in my arms. He was so small, his head deformed into a slightly conical shape from the pressure of being born and his face red and wrinkled and utterly solemn as he calmed down from the startling first moments of his life.

He was perfect and I loved everything from the fine, damp hair on his head to the tiny toes peeking out of the bottom end of the receiving blanket—which were probably cold; newborns have difficulty regulating their own body temperature. I adjusted the blanket to cover him up better and held him close.

“Welcome, Virgil. My son.”

For a long, life-changing moment, I simply stared at my newborn son, and he at me, while he took his first quiet breaths and I learned what it was to hold the fragile new life of my own child in my arms. And then, at length, a hand tapped me on the shoulder.

I had forgotten that there was also a doctor in the room.

Virgil made a strange little hiccuping noise as I clutched him closer, and for reasons that I simply could not understand, the doctor laughed.

“It's been long enough,” the man explained, gesturing to the bundle of veins trailing out of the blanket, which had been pulsing a minute ago but had now grown still. He held out a strange-looking pair of scissors, with large square ends. “You can cut it.”

Carefully cradling my son in one arm, I used the odd scissors to cut the cord. Such a simple act... and yet, it was life-giving. And in the next moments, I handed the baby to Patton, and we rested against each other as a family.

This was the beginning of a new life, and I couldn't have loved either of them more.


	7. The Beating of Young Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Here I Am" by Bryan Adams, which was the song that played over the "childhood" montage in the move _Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron._ Yes, I'm the kind of nerd who's still making references to that movie.

“He's so tiny!”

We had just gotten home, and Roman was cooing over Virgil as if he had never seen a two-day-old baby before. Perhaps he hadn't. This was certainly the first time that a baby had been born into the Mindscape, and even though it had begun as an accident, I couldn't help but be a little bit proud that Patton and I had been the ones to bring a child into being.

“He has to be,” I pointed out. “If he were much bigger, he wouldn't have been able to be born.”

“Wow,” Roman murmured. “Can I hold him?”

“Yes, but you have to be careful,” I warned. “His neck muscles aren't strong enough to support his head yet, so you have to do it for him, like this.” I demonstrated the correct technique for holding a baby, then very carefully passed him off to Roman, who copied me with minor adjustments to allow for the fact that, as he was still a boy himself, his arms were shorter than mine.

“Hello, little prince,” Roman said, making a point of supporting Virgil's head with his elbow while extracting his other hand to explore the tiny baby fingers. “You're so— _oh!_ You're _strong!_ ”

Patton and I both laughed at the sight of Roman with his eyes wide and his first two fingers imprisoned in Virgil's grip. Despite the differences of size and experience between them, it was clear that the much smaller had won this contest of strength.

“Infants have an extremely strong gripping reflex starting at birth,” I explained, attempting to collect myself with moderate success. “Experiments suggest that their arm muscles can support their entire body weight even before their neck muscles can support the weight of their heads. Scientists believe that this is because arboreal pre-human ancestors relied on the infant's own hold on the parent to transport it, and the reflex was thus bred into us so strongly that it survived even though our infants are now far more vulnerable at birth in many other ways.”

Roman looked a little dazed at all that, and opted to use his three free fingers to tickle Virgil's stomach very gently. “I hope that made sense to you, because it didn't to me,” he informed the baby. “But you're so strong already, when you get bigger you and I can play together and have adventures! Would you like that?”

The baby's eyes locked on his, without a sound.

“Give him back to me?” Patton requested after a moment. “I want to make sure he's okay.”

Roman laughed a little but gently handed Virgil to Patton. “You two really are the anxious first-time parents, aren't you?”

“I guess so,” Patton admitted. “We've never done this before, and I just don't want to let him get hurt.”

It wasn't long afterwards that we took Virgil out into the real world for the first time, to show him to Thomas. Roman insisted on following us with his nicest camera, claiming that this was a meeting that needed to be _documented!_ (emphasis his) and that he was obviously the best candidate to do so. I may have laughed a bit, but Patton seemed to agree and I certainly would not object to having such photos.

Thomas was taken with Virgil immediately. “I already love him. What kind of Side is he—what does he represent?”

I frowned and looked at Patton, who looked back at me with a vaguely puzzled expression similar to my own. “We don't know yet,” I admitted after a moment. “He's still so young. It's possible he'll tell us himself when he learns to talk, or that we'll be able to deduce what he is as he grows up.”

“That's okay,” Thomas said, gently rubbing the soft baby hair on Virgil's head. “He's perfect either way.”

The snap-whirr of Roman's camera documented twelve-year-old Thomas cradling infant Virgil, documented me and Patton taking him back, documented the two of us fathers holding each other and our newborn son. All the photos that came out went into a photo album, and an extra print of that last scene ended up on our mantelpiece in the common area of the Mindscape.

It would stay there forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so fair warning: assuming that I can stick to my outline (which I have, admittedly, revised twice already), the angsty bit begins _next chapter._ However, you should also be aware now that I'm determined to include a happy resolution to the angsty plot.


	8. Every New Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be aware: the angsty bit begins about halfway through this chapter.
> 
> Chapter title is from "Closing Time" by Semisonic (again, I'm aware that I used a different line from the same song for a previous chapter). Those familiar with the song may espy the reason that I chose _this_ line for the first chapter to have real angst in it. (For those not familiar: the full version of the line is, "Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.")

We settled into a routine around the new baby quickly enough. Keeping him fed, clean, warm, and happy was a demanding but rewarding task, and one that occupied a great deal of our time and attention. Patton was, unsurprisingly, a gentle and affectionate father; he was even somehow able to intuit meaning from Virgil's infant vocalizations, which I would have assumed was impossible but which I learned from subsequent research was something that parents could sometimes do. It seemed that some infants—possibly all, though scientists had yet to determine whether or not that was the case—tended to consistently use different cries to express different needs, and a sufficiently attentive parent could learn to recognize which one was which.

Naturally, having discovered this, I purposed to learn this proto-language for myself. After all, Patton's ability to understand it suggested that there was something there to understand, and I thought that it would be best for everyone if I too were able to immediately identify Virgil's needs and attend to them. So I began by gathering data: listening to teach myself the different noises that the child made, and attempting to match them to what alleviated his distress. I never did manage to become as fluent as Patton was, but after a week or so I was beginning to guess correctly more often than not.

Virgil's first month of life was a good time. As exhausting as it was that one or the other of us would have to attend to his needs at regular intervals even at night, it was rewarding to be able to care for him, and watching him grow at the extraordinary pace of a newborn infant was astonishing and rewarding. I kept detailed notes on his development, wanting to remember exactly when he reached each milestone that Patton exclaimed with delight over, so that I could look back at each and think of how happy and proud we were.

We thought of the future often. What kind of Side would our son grow up to be—and how quickly? Would he be able to cope if he experienced a rapid growth spurt as we had? Of course, no matter what happened, he would always have our love and whatever help we could provide. That was simply a given, a default. Sometimes we worried that we would not always be able to help him enough, but for the most part the future looked hopeful.

We had no idea, of course, what was lying ahead of us.

It began as an ordinary day, much like any other. I had put Virgil down for a nap and then joined Patton in my room for some quiet time together. We were cuddling quietly, having said everything we felt the need to say for the time being, when Patton started to get tense.

“What's wrong, love?” I asked him.

“It's been an awful long time... shouldn't Virgil be waking up?”

I checked my watch. It had been around two hours since I had left him in the nursery, and over four hours since he had last eaten. That was too long; he was, after all, only a month old, and should be getting hungry enough by now that it would wake him. His stomach was simply too small to hold more than four hours' worth of sustenance, and we would normally have heard him crying for food by now, as that was the only way he could get more at his extremely young age.

So when Patton expressed worry that our son had not let us know that he was awake, I couldn't help thinking that he had good reason to be concerned, even as I tried to think of ways to comfort him.

“He did sleep poorly last night, you know.”

“I have a really bad feeling about this,” Patton insisted, and got up to head for the nursery. Moments later, a scream echoed through the entire Mindscape, and I rushed to see what the problem was.

Patton was clinging to the crib, half-collapsed and sobbing. I approached cautiously, and in a moment I could see the obvious reason for his distress: there was no baby in the crib at all, no sign of Virgil whatsoever.

From behind me, a voice spoke up. “Are you okay, Padre?”

It was Roman's voice. I had no reason to be startled by it. It was only logical that he should have been drawn to the nursery, as I had been, by Patton's cries. Even if both Roman and Patton continue to believe that I screamed anyway.

I reached into the crib, while Patton attempted to explain that he obviously _wasn't_ all right, he wouldn't be all right again until we had our son back, and I picked up the one thing that was there: a small piece of paper with writing on it.

 _Happy January_ , it read. That was the entire message, except for a visual signature of sorts, which came in the form of a drawing of a two-headed snake.

I stared at the note for a long, long time, trying to process what I was seeing. This was not a ransom note. It was simply laying claim to a kidnapping. The _others_ had taken Virgil away. They did not seem to be demanding anything from us in return. They wanted us to know it was them, that they had him, but they offered no suggestion of anything we could do to get him back.

 _Happy January._ The month was named for Janus, the two-faced Roman god of doors, beginnings, and endings. I supposed that, now that I thought about it, this might be Deceit's favorite month; in a sense, it matched his insignia, after all. Something was ended here. Did he mean to imply that something else had begun?

I would figure out more later. For the moment, I needed to hold Patton.


	9. Somewhere in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "I Will Be Here for You" by Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. Fair warning: this chapter is stylistically a little different from all the others, for values of "different" that include "angstier."

We searched everywhere we could get to, but we never found Virgil.

It was heartbreaking and infuriating, but not surprising. The two groups of us were rarely able to intrude on each other's territory. We knew that Virgil was out there somewhere, on the other side of the dividing line, but we could not cross that line to bring him home. Instead, we grieved for our lost child, hoping that someday he would come back to us but slowly accepting that we would likely never see him again.

Of course, we had to find a way to explain the situation to Thomas, who had felt that something was going on but been initially unaware of what the matter was—a project that was significantly complicated by the fact that he did not know that there were other Sides. After some discussion among the three of us, Patton and Roman and I agreed on a way to frame the matter that was as truthful as possible without revealing anything that would get us silenced: we would tell him that Virgil had gone missing for reasons that we did not fully understand, and that this had made us very sad. Predictably, this was confusing and upsetting for him.

“What do you mean, he's just _gone?_ How is that possible?”

“I don't _know,_ kiddo!” Patton pleaded. “We looked everywhere for him and we just can't find him.”

“Does... does that mean... is he... dead, then?”

Patton broke down crying, and I attempted to explain to the best of my ability. “Unlikely. I am not certain that your Sides _can_ die while you live, and he does seem to be a Side, albeit one whose purpose we do not presently know. He may have taken on a subtler role. It is possible that he will reappear, given time.”

Thomas did not show signs of being especially convinced by my line of reasoning, which was not surprising considering that I couldn't tell him about the main reason that I thought so. However, he opted to go hug Patton instead of trying to argue with me.

In the aftermath, everything changed for us, in ways that we never would have guessed before. The least of them was that I would never be able to see Patton shirtless again without seeing the stretchmarks on his belly and thinking, if only for a moment, of the child he had birthed. There was an empty place in our lives where Virgil should have been, but the idea of trying to fill it with another child was unconscionable.

When I asked Patton if he wanted another baby, it was clearly too soon, because he burst into tears and made a noise like a wounded elephant which eventually resolved into words: “No, I can't, I don't want a _new_ baby, I want _our Virgil_ back!” From that, I inferred that he felt that having another child would be like trying to replace Virgil, which would run counter to his strong belief that one person is fundamentally not interchangeable with another. I never asked again.

Our relationship changed, subtly in some ways, more overtly in others. I found myself relying on Patton to direct me more often, even as he relied on me to hold him up when he was overwhelmed with grief. Even as time passed and the pain grew less immediate, though, some things remained different. 

We were never going to have another child; though I never asked, I suspected that Patton feared that any other baby we had might meet the same fate. The possibility had certainly occurred to me, and I was troubled to conclude that we had no way to be sure that it wouldn't happen. After all, we had never figured out how Deceit had been able to abduct Virgil, and therefore no way to determine how to protect a hypothetical second child. We couldn't even assess the degree of risk. And I knew that Patton already loved the children we would never have with the same protectiveness that he had felt over the son we had in fact _had_ and too-briefly had held; he would never consign them to the mysterious but assuredly terrible fate that came with being kidnapped by more unpleasant and dangerous Sides, even if keeping them safe meant that he couldn't have them at all.

Years passed, one after another. Thomas and Roman grew up, eventually caught up to me and Patton. We learned to live with one of our number missing.

For the longest time, we thought that was the end of the story.


	10. Not Just Anyone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't actually forgotten about this story! It just took me approximately _forever_ to get the muses unstuck on this chapter, so with my apologies for its belated arrival, here's what _should_ be the penultimate chapter!
> 
> (...but don't be surprised if one or two more chapters insert themselves somewhere along the way.)
> 
> Chapter title is from "He's My Son" by Mark Schultz, because I love me some dramatic irony.

He came from nowhere, it seemed.

When the three of us went to bed the night before, nothing had seemed amiss or out of the ordinary. When we woke up in the morning, though, there was a new door off the hallway where our bedrooms all were. It was unclear to me whose it was, but it clearly belonged to _someone,_ as it was painted all black, a color which covered none of the other doors in the house to such a degree and which therefore must be a reflection of the inhabitant's personal—what was that term that Roman kept using lately?—“aesthetic.” (I would have said “aesthetic preferences,” but it seemed that the adjective by itself had recently been liberated from the requirement of an accompanying noun in popular parlance.) Even the doorknob was pitch-black.

Seeing as it was the first thing in the morning, we elected (with some encouragement from Patton) to discuss this matter downstairs, so as to avoid rudely waking whoever was behind the door. Roman spent all of breakfast trying to convince us that there was a _mystery_ waiting for us, that we would need to know who it was, so that we could either gain their help or overcome their resistance in order to... what, precisely, his idea of the purpose of the exercise was, I never quite worked out, as he seemed to be convinced that it was obvious.

We had finished breakfast and moved to the living room by the time the newcomer joined us in person. He evidently had very different preferences in clothing than the rest of us, I surmised, seeing as he was dressed all in black and wore ripped skinny jeans, as well as having patches of something dark, which might have been either makeup or bruising or some combination of both, underneath his eyes. The expression with which he regarded us was not enthusiastic, though I was not sure what exactly it was.

Patton was the first to speak: “Hey, kiddo, who're you?”

“Anxiety.” Perhaps I imagined it, but the word seemed to leave him with difficulty. His voice was on the deeper end compared to the rest of us, but also quieter.

Anxiety. One of the _others_. What brought him here? They had their own place, to which we did not have access, and they in turn did not—normally—have access to ours. Therefore, _something_ must have happened to allow him to enter our home. But what?

Roman, it was evident, had other priorities that he considered more urgent than working out how Anxiety had come to be here. “Invading our home now?” he snarled. “Can't you _dark_ Sides do enough harm where you belong?”

Later, Patton would tell me that he had seen something in that moment, that Anxiety had flinched away and then puffed up like a frightened cat. I didn't see it myself, but I trusted that Patton had; he had always been by far the better of us at reading others' emotional states. If he said that Anxiety was defensive but not malicious, I would believe him.

In the moment, I saw Patton asking the newcomer, “What's your _name_ , though? I'm Patton, and these two are Logan and Roman,” his tone surprisingly gentle, particularly in contrast to Roman's fury.

“It's nobody's business but _mine_ what my name is,” Anxiety told him, defensive enough that I could easily identify it without assistance. It was not particularly surprising that he would refuse to give his name, under the circumstances; Roman's hostility was a clear enough reason to keep back all further information about himself.

“Why do you _want_ to know his name?” Roman demanded, proving that point. “Isn't it enough that he is one of _them_?”

“Roman, that's enough for now,” I remonstrated. “I have a question of my own for Anxiety: what brings you here, and how did you enter our space?”

“I don't know,” Anxiety replied, an emotional edge to his tone that I couldn't quite identify. “I don't remember doing anything different last night, but I woke up this morning and I was... here.”

“He has to be lying,” Roman said immediately. 

“I'm _not,_ ” Anxiety protested angrily.

“Calm _down,_ ” Patton ordered them both in his most persuasive Dad Voice. “Let's talk this out like grown-ups. Anxiety, do you want to go back?”

He didn't answer, but he seemed to shrink in on himself at the very words. I took it upon myself to point out what that most likely meant: “He appears to be signaling a preference for staying here.”

“Please?” he asked quietly.

“He stays,” Patton declared, so firmly that none of us would have even considered gainsaying him. I had to admit, if only to myself, that I didn't particularly want to; I was too curious about who this stranger was and how he had come to be here, and if he stayed I might have the chance to learn more.


	11. Something's Familiar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Six months to the day after I began posting this story, here we are! This is NOT the final chapter, and also it's far sadder than I intended it to be going in. Assuming I don't overrun my goals _again,_ the final chapter -- with the happy ending in it -- should be the one after this! Chapter title is from "Strangers Like Me" by Phil Collins, again because I love the dramatic irony. Keep an eye out for heaps of it!

Anxiety settled in with us acceptably, albeit with no small opposition from Roman, who was bewildered by the fact that Patton and I were less angry than he, rather than more. After all, we were the ones who had lost a child at the hands of the _others_ , so why weren't we trying to drive out one of them who had come into our home?

“It would be really unfair,” Patton explained, or at least tried, since I wasn't sure Roman believed him. “There's one of him and three of us, and I think he's at _least_ as scared of the rest of them as we are. I don't want to force him to go back to them, when he clearly doesn't want to. And I've got this _feeling_... I can't explain it, but I think it's _right_ for him to be here.”

For my own part, I was curious, both about Anxiety himself and about matters that he might be able to illuminate for us. Who was he? What had his life been like before he unexpectedly joined us—and, for that matter, I was still curious, how had he come to be here anyway? Not that I disbelieved him when he said that he did not know himself how it had happened, but if he were willing to assist me I might be able to investigate further. And... did he know anything about what had happened to our son?

Patton's assessment of Anxiety's nature seemed to hold up under observation: that he was not truly malicious, but at worst struggling to cope with his fears, and he spent much of his time merely attempting to understand. I could relate to that. Although he often came to inaccurate conclusions, either as a result of his cognition being distorted by the state of terror that seemed to be his default or simply because of the gaps that appeared to exist in his knowledge, I found that I merely wished to correct and guide him.

I wanted to _teach_ him, as strange as it sounded even to myself. He was a stranger, and one who had hitherto been considered one of our enemies at that, and yet... I wanted to help him understand better.

Anxiety's introduction into the videos that Thomas had been making about us recently had had consequences none of us could have foreseen. On one hand, the videos had given us all chances to get to know him better (even if Roman had refused to take them), but on the other, certain elements of the fandom's reaction—particularly after we had revealed that we also had our own personal names—had been... unexpected.

Patton liked to read what our fans were up to, far more than I ever bothered with, and I had found him sobbing over theories about possible names for Anxiety more than once. It seemed that a large number of them had followed similar trains of thought as he had all those years before, when we were contemplating possible names for our son, and the reminders were causing him to remember how badly he missed Virgil. I attempted to comfort him, but the loss remained with me as well, resulting in our spending many hours together in tears.

It was inevitable that, one way or another, Anxiety would eventually notice the existence of our missing piece. It was merely chance—or perhaps his own disposition containing a surprisingly vast capacity for tact—that the first question he asked connected to that subject was about the most innocuous sign: the photograph in the living room of myself and Patton holding our infant son.

“Who's that in the picture?”

Such innocent words. He had no way of knowing how much they would hurt.

Patton flinched away as if he had been struck. I attempted to keep my composure, aware that it was scarcely possible to broach the subject more gently.

“I am afraid that that is a more difficult question than you might think,” I hedged, and looked at Patton. _Should we tell him?_

Patton looked back at me, old grief plainly visible on his face, but nodded and gestured to me. _You do it. I'm not sure I can._

Having settled on a course of action, I set out to enact it.

“First of all, Anxiety, have you heard of _the complex_?”

His eyes widened. “As in, the theory that some Sides can... you know... have babies?”

I nodded. “Essentially correct, but it is more than just a theory. A number of years ago now, not long after we reached maturity, Patton and I had a son together.” Indicating the image, I explained, “Roman took that photo a few days after our child's birth.”

Anxiety nodded tremulously. “So... what happened?”

“He was kidnapped,” I replied simply. “It was only a month later. Deceit claimed responsibility for the abduction. And since then, we have heard... nothing. No ransom demands, as Roman was convinced at one point we would receive. No visits from him as far as we have been able to discern. No news of how he has been faring. Not even any acknowledgment since that day that he had ever existed in the first place.”

“I'm sorry,” Anxiety choked out, visibly horrified. “I didn't know...”

“It's all right, kiddo,” Patton managed, the first thing he'd been able to say since the story had begun. “It's not _your_ fault he took our child away. But you're the first person we've ever gotten to tell the whole story to, since Roman was there and Thomas doesn't know about the _Others_ , so it's sort of new for us too even though it's been so many years...”

“Is that why Roman doesn't like me?”

Patton and I both winced a little at the question. “It's probable,” I agreed. “Deceit likely had the cooperation of at least one other Side, we have long known, and... Roman refuses to give up his suspicions.”

“I'm sorry,” Anxiety repeated.

“As Patton said, you aren't responsible for the actions of others, much less actions they took without your knowledge,” I pointed out.

He looked uncertain. “I _should_ have stopped him, though. Somehow.”

“You would have if you could,” Patton told him, serious but gentle. “I know you wouldn't let something bad happen if you could stop it, and you wouldn't let something stay broken if you could fix it.”

The look Anxiety gave him was... I couldn't put a name to it. (Scared? Desperate? Determined?) “I didn't know anything you just told me about happened, but... I _think_ I know everyone down there. What was your son's name?”

I glanced reflexively at the picture of two young, smiling, too-innocent fathers and their newborn baby. Patton was still staring at it when I looked to him.

“We called him Virgil.”

Later, when we discussed the matter afterwards, Patton would use very strong words to describe the expression Anxiety wore when we were able to meet his eyes again, like “heartbroken” and “devastated.” He was just as sad as we were. I had never expected him to experience such distress over a loss that wasn't his own.

“I'm sorry, I never met anyone named Virgil.”


End file.
